Socialized medicine and union corruption are a potent combination and, in the case of the VA, a deadly one. The VA scandal has brought the network of hospitals under a national spotlight.
But the troubled hospitals have been joined under the spotlight by a more widespread problem in America: union “official time,” also known as, “release time.”
Kim Strassel of The Wall Street Journal has shed light on how the VA is in a Big Labor choke hold, granting the president of local lodge 1798 of the National Federation of Federal Employees 100 percent “official time,” which effectively means that the president is not really a VA employee since she is not obligated to do any work for the hospital.
But “official” or release time at the VA doesn’t end with the union president....

When one thinks of American bureaucracy, notions of political neutrality, professionalism, and disinterested arbitration come to mind. Well, maybe not… but at least those are the notions that progressives would like you to hold.

I previously wrote about the campaign from the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) against Norwegian Air International's (NAI) attempt to offer low-cost flights from the U.S. to Europe. Having lost their case in Europe, ALPA has teamed up with a European pilots' union to pressure the Federal Aviation Administration to deny NAI's petition for a foreign air carrier permit. In addition, ALPA is spending millions on a xenophobic ad campaign in a pathetic attempt to stoke ethnic and national division for its members' narrow benefit. A sample line: “NAI calls itself Norwegian, but it registers its airplanes in...

What did they think would happen?
Seattle is likely to lift its minimum wage to $15 an hour. The move, supported by leftists and labor unions, would make the city's artificial wage floor the highest in the nation. Proponents gush about the importance of "living wages," while opponents, citing economic research, warn against the increases in unemployment and harm to small businesses likely to follow. Unfortunately for artificial wage floor boosters, Seattle politicians need only look a few miles away to see the harm a $15 minimum wage can do.
SeaTac, a suburb of Seattle, recently decided to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and United Liberty...

Mismanagement within the federal government may not be at an all-time high, but it is close. The latest blunder is the Department of Veterans Affairs scandal, where VA officials covered up delays in care for veterans.

Every investigation, every group that review it found no illegal activity, no abuses, and that it was lawful. It’s hard to say that there was some horrible rogue agency when all the groups that investigated it came to the same conclusion.

Rep. Rogers is wrong. His statement, which referred to the National Security Agency’s data collection programs under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act (50 U.S.C. § 1861), ignores the report...